


On Waiting Too Long

by AzulDemon



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery, Wakanda (Marvel), until it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:21:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22236268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzulDemon/pseuds/AzulDemon
Summary: Steve can’t help but think that he and Bucky are the bud of some kind of twisted cosmic joke, teased just within reach of one another only to be catapulted away again.  Steve is always too late.  Bucky always slipping through his fingers.  There isn’t a line that Steve wouldn't cross for James Buchanan Barnes.  That much is bombastically obvious in the flaming wreckage of friendships and German airports alike.  But he doesn't know what to do now.  He doesn't know how to help the most important person in his life.Or, how things should have gone from the end of Black Panther all the way through Endgame.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson
Comments: 30
Kudos: 226





	On Waiting Too Long

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is my first Steve/Bucky fic which is a bit shocking given just how much I love (*coughs* obsessed) I am with this pairing. There are so many Stucky fics out there and I wasn't sure about throwing my hat in that very impressive, very intimidating ring. But here I am. I started writing this after I saw Black Panther and then kept going once Infinity War broke my heart and then just kept writing as a way of coping with the grief that Endgame left me with. And now...I finally decided, what the hell, and edited this and...here we are *shrugs*
> 
> Hope you all like it!

It all starts with an email.

It comes in on the secure account that T’Challa set up for him before the Wakandan King’s people put Bucky back into cryo.They don’t actually communicate much.Most of their correspondence is due to T’Challa being kind enough to send Steve periodic updates on the progress his sister and her science team are making with Bucky’s treatment and to assure him that Bucky continues to be resting comfortably.

It is a small consolation.

Bucky is still frozen in a tube in a lab after all…but it is _something_ and Steve is nothing if not a relentless optimist.And he has no right to be ungrateful.T’Challa is risking a great deal for him and Bucky.He has assigned his own sister, the best and the brightest of Wakanda’s already highly advanced science community, with undoing the brainwashing and damage that Hydra inflicted on Bucky’s mind.

And yet…and yet it still feels as though he got Bucky back only to lose him again.He can’t help but think that they are the bud of some kind of twisted cosmic joke, teased just within reach of one another only to be catapulted away again.

The weight of their history, of the life that they have lived in parallel and entangled, writhes inside of Steve like a Gordian knot.Ever since he learned that Bucky survived the fall from the train and was captured and turned into the Winter Soldier he has been unable to think of little else. 

How could he not?

He keeps the account a secret along with Bucky’s location.It is an unsavory piece of advice from Nick Fury, compartmentalization means that if someone doesn’t know something they can’t give it away.It feels gross, it feels antithetical to who he is and what he believes.

But there apparently isn’t a line that he won’t cross for James Buchanan Barnes.That much is bombastically obvious in the flaming wreckage of friendships and German airports alike.

He’d made his peace with that back in nineteen forty-five. 

He also hopes that not knowing anything might protect Natasha and Sam if it ever comes down to it.Except he’s fairly certain that Natasha already knows.Steve learned a long time ago that there is very little that Natasha doesn’t know.He’s also given up trying to figure out how she always seems to know just about everything.It’s just one of those universal constants like gravity or nuclear fusion.

It starts with an email.

It isn’t a long message.It’s six whole words in total counting the signature:

_Hey Steve,_

_I’ve been thawed._

_\- Bucky_

It’s the signature at the bottom line that does it.It is like a Hulk-sized fist to his sternum driving all the air out of his lungs and leaving him temporarily unable to remember how to breathe.It leaves him with the familiar urge to climb into the stolen Quinjet and follow the quadrants that had been entrusted to him over six months ago and run straight to Bucky.

Instead, he remains stock still like all his joints have suddenly been flash-fused together. 

He reminds himself that they are heading out on a mission and that he needs to keep his head in the moment.But his minds eye has other plans, spinning out a like a kaleidoscope of Bucky’s face:Bucky at nine, gap-toothed smile wide and beaming—Bucky dressed sharp as a tack, ready for a night of dancing—Bucky with wide and wild eyes refusing to leave Steve behind in a burning Hydra facility—Bucky with long hair framing his solemn features…

He closes his eyes and somehow remembers how to inhale and convert oxygen into carbon dioxide.He clings that simple act against the deluge of memories and emotions that rush and cascade through him in an unforgiving torrent.

“Everything okay, Rogers?”Natasha asks, her green eyes sliding over him before resting on the cellphone that is gripped tight in his palm.

He knows that she is reading him like he is an open book.

He clears his throat.“Yeah…” he tucks the phone back into a pouch on his utility belt.“What’s the target?”

She eyes him for a long moment.There is always so much going on below the surface that is Natasha’s beautiful face.It never ceases to unnerve him.Finally, she relents and angles the tablet she has been working on towards him so that he can see the photos and data streams.

_-_-_

“On your six, Cap!”Sam warns through the hiss of the comms.

Steve ducks and rolls to the left, narrowly dodging the stream of bullets that were meant to take him in the back.Not for the first time, he misses the shield and the perfect protection it had provided him for so long.He still finds himself reaching back behind his back, missing the feel of it against his arm.

He springs up onto the balls of his feet and spins on his left foot into a roundhouse kick that catches the terrorist across the jaw and sends him reeling over. 

“Thanks,” he mutters to Sam.

He gives his head a firm shake.He has got to get this job done.He has got to get his head back into the fight.But another part of his brain insists on trying to compose an appropriate response to that email.

Like always, just the thought of Bucky is enough to completely throw him off.

_Get it together!_

He rushes back into the thick of the fray relying on the flow of battle to keep him in the present.Steve doesn’t like fighting—you wouldn’t think it by knowing his history with fighting—but he doesn’t.He appreciates the necessity of it at times.He respects the way it demands all of you.He’s never found anything quite like it.

In the end, they get the job done. 

They find the crates of stolen Hydra weapons, keeping them out of terrorist hands.It’s a good day’s work but it also opens the door to more questions, more leads, more work that would be easier if they still had SHIELD…If they still had the Avengers.

The instant they load the crates onto their Quinjet and Sam is preparing them for takeoff Steve pulls out his phone and looks back down at the email as if he missed something or it might have somehow changed.But it remains the same.

He begins to type out a response and is almost four sentences in before he realizes that he’s rambling aimlessly.He taps angrily at the delete icon on the screen and clears the it, the white of it glaring back at him.It feels irrationally like judgment.

He itches to reach out and respond but he doesn’t know what to say or how to say it.

What do you say to someone who’s been frozen for six months having their brain debugged?What do you say to your best friend who you thought was dead but is actually alive and who you started a small war over?

By the time they reach their latest safe house in Malaga Steve still hasn’t managed to write a single word.

As Sam is landing the jet Natasha saunters up alongside him like a lazy cat, her voice pitched low so that only he can hear her.

“Just keep it simple, Rogers,” she suggests.“Take it slow and easy.You don’t have to communicate everything all at once.”

She slips past him leaving him essential gaping after her like carp out of water and feeling like the world is teetering and spinning around him like he’s on the Cyclone at Coney Island again.

She glances back over her shoulder at him her rose-petal lips curling up in one corner into a coy and playful smile.“I know that that’s not your MO when it comes to this specific target.”

Steve feels like all the blood in his body ignites and rushes up into his face. 

_How does she do that!?_

“Hey, Natasha,” Sam scrambles from behind the flight controls and rushes past Steve.“There’s this amazing tapas place that I found the other night.It’s not far from here.”He spins and jogs backward and shrugs and wags his brows at Steve before turning and chasing after her.

“Tapas, huh,” Natasha drawls.“Sounds like a convenient excuse to buy me a drink, Wilson.”

Steve can’t see his face but he knew Sam is flashing Natasha his best megawatt smile. 

“When in Spain…”Sam supplies, his charm levels dialed up to maximum.

He watches them go, bantering and _maybe_ flirting a bit, as they head into the safe house.When he can’t see them anymore and he can only hear them because of super-soldier hearing, he takes in a deep breath in through his nose and then pushes it out his mouth.He plops onto one of the benches in the jet and stares down at the screen.

“Simple…” he whispers to himself.“Slow and easy…” he repeats Natasha’s advice. 

He’s come to know that Natasha is rarely wrong about anything.That’s why he takes her advice.

Gradually, black letters begin to appear against the glowing white expanse of the screen.

_Hey Buck,_

_That’s great.How’s Wakanda treating you?_

_-Steve_

When he hits send it is like something has released its grip on his heart and he leans his head back against the haul of the jet.

That wasn’t so bad…

He can do this.He can do slow and easy—no problem…

_-_-_

It takes almost two days for Bucky to reply.All the while Steve is basically climbing the walls with his anxiety and urge to send another message.Once more, it is Natasha’s counsel that holds Steve’s impulse to take the jet and fly straight for Wakanda at bay.

The next email is more than double the words of the last one.Steve decides that that’s a win, a sign of progress.

_It’s great.Warmer than Siberia.No one is trying to kill me…yet._

That’s all.But it sends Steve’s heart soaring into the stratosphere.That Bucky replied, that he’s well enough to joke is enough to basically erase the past two days of anxiety in a single stroke.Before he knows what he’s doing he has hit reply and started typing.

_Give it time, they’ll come around eventually._

He sends it off without a second thought and then almost immediately begins to second guess himself, worried that he might have gone too far.Thankfully, he doesn’t have to live in the discomfort for long because Bucky responds about an hour later.

_I do seem to have that effect on people lately._

Steve smiles. 

It goes on like that, nothing important, just that easy banter that has lived at the heart of who they have been all their lives.

“Told you,” Natasha singsongs, sitting down next to Steve on the couch in their safe-house.“Slow.Easy.Simple.It doesn't have to be complicated.”

Steve is so happy with the steady stream of communication with Bucky that he can’t even be bothered to marvel or be irritated at Natasha’s savvy and teasing superiority.

“You were right,” Steve says looking down at his phone. 

A thought occurs, something that has been weighing on him even as he has been elated about the little bits of communication he has been sharing with Bucky. 

“I can’t help feeling like I should be doing more.We haven’t even really talked about what his mental state is or where he’s staying or how he’s feeling.”

Natasha lets out the heavy breath of the long-suffering.“Sometimes it just feels good to be normal—to talk about small things.”She explains.“It helps you remember that the difficult stuff—the dark stuff—isn’t everything and that there’s still good and simple things out there.”

“But isn’t that just avoiding?”

“A little,” Natasha shrugs.“But there’s nothing wrong with a little distraction every now and then.There will be plenty of time for the big stuff.”She tucks her now blonde hair behind her ear. 

Steve still can’t quite get used to the new look that she adopted as part of their cover.It suits her but Steve’s not sure anything wouldn’t look good on Natasha. 

“Personally,” she continues.“I’d wait until you’re face-to-face for that kind of talk.”

“Do I just go then?”

“I said slow and easy,”Natasha admonishes tersely.“Take it in steps.”

“What other steps _are_ there?”

She gives him a teasing look.“You know, there’s this newfangled thing the kids are using these days…” she brings a finger to her pursed lips and looks up at the ceiling.“I think it’s called video chatting.”

_-_-_

Steve gets a Wakanda approved video chatting app so that he and Bucky can communicate face-to-face.Bucky doesn’t go for it at first, preferring to continue to communicate through email.Steve continues to heed Natasha’s words.He doesn’t push.He takes things with Bucky slow.He keeps things light.He keeps his desire to fly out to Wakanda to see him to himself, never once suggests it.Slowly, over the weeks, their messages became longer and longer.Steve lets Bucky set the pace and so refrains from asking about the specifics regarding Bucky’s memories—if they are intact and the Hydra brainwashing gone.

The day that his phone screen lights up indicating that he has an incoming video chat his heart feels like it’s running on jet fuel in his chest, each chamber pumping magma through his veins.He freezes, momentarily forgetting what to do and then his thumb slides the icon to answer.

He has been dying to see Bucky since that first email, to make sure that he’s intact and okay.

He isn’t ready.

Bucky’s hair is still long and a little lanker than Steve remembers and his stubble is starting to make its way into beard territory.His eyes are a bit sunken and storm cloud-grey.He tries to take in everything he can see but the screen only allows him to see Bucky’s face and a bit of his neck.

“I’m old, but I think we’re supposed to talk when we do this.”Bucky teases.

Steve realizes that he’s just been starting and hasn’t said a word.

“Hi, Bucky,”

Bucky chuckles softly and bows his head and shakes it affectionately side to side.“You’re terrible at this.”

Steve laughs and hopes that it doesn’t come through as chocked on Bucky’s end.“Yeah…yeah, I am.I’ll work on it.”

_-_-_

They continue to communicate primarily through emails but after a few more face chatting experiences Steve losses it.He can’t take this anymore—being this close but also so far…having this technological barrier between them.He can’t understand why people like communicating this way.

He wants to _see_ Bucky. _Really_ see him.

His team is preparing for some much needed shore leave and he can’t get the idea of using that time to go and see Bucky out of his head.

So he caves.

He sends it through email because even Steve Rogers has the right to be less than bold sometimes.

_Hey,_

_So, I’ve been thinking.I’ve got some free time coming up and I was wondering if it’d be all right if I came to Wakanda and see you.No pressure.Whatever you’re comfortable with._

_-Steve_

He waits for almost an entire day for the response.It feels like the longest span of hours in his entire life.When the response comes it is one word:

_Okay._

Steve cannot stop the manic smile that cracks across his face.

_-_-_

“Remember, Rogers, slow and easy,”Natasha advises Steve just before he drops her and Sam off.

“Slow and easy,” Steve swallows, feeling completely out of his depth.“I can do that.No problem.”

She gives him a wink before scooping up her duffle bag and slinging it over her shoulder.

“Are you seriously skipping out on this?”Sam asks incredulously.“Because these beaches are supposed to be next level.”

“I’m sure,” Steve answers with a fond smile.

He can see Sam gearing up to ask him more questions about where it is exactly that he’s going while he and Natasha recuperate on the white sandy beaches of Zakynthos.

“You better hurry,” Steve jerks his chin in the direction of Natasha’s quickly retreating back.“Before you lose her.”

Sam’s eyes fallow and go wide.“Shit,” and he very nearly sprints off of the jet scooping up his own bag as he goes.“Your loss, you old stick in the mud!”He teases loudly over his shoulder.

Steve chuckles wishing Sam the very best of luck in his endeavors.He is going to need it.

And that is how Steve finds himself piloting the Quinjet to Wakanda, flying through a terrifyingly realistic holographic illusion of a jungle mountain before it gives way to blue-white pixels and then the metropolitan marvel of Birnin Zana.This part of the journey always leaves him with a feeling of roiling, icy discomfort in the pit of his stomach.It’s a little too much like crashing into the Arctic for Steve’s liking, even if the terrain is very different. 

He lands on a runway that he is directed to and is given the great honor to be greeted by King T’Challa himself alongside his royal guard.It really is an honor, for a king to take the time to greet him like this but…Steve would be lying if he were to say he wasn’t disappointed that it wasn’t Bucky there to greet him instead.

T’Challa welcomes him with a friendly clasping of hands and a genuine smile.

“We have set your friend up someplace private,” T’Challa, explains as they walk together.“He did not wish to be among the crowds of the city.”

That makes complete sense and Steve feels a little like a selfish prick for wanting to push Bucky outside of his, likely very limited, comfort zone.

Private turns out to be little more than a hut and a small plot of farmland. 

“I will leave you to your reunion,”T’Challa says as Steve steps slowly off of the hoover craft that has carried them here.

Steve walks slowly toward the hut wondering if he is supposed to knock or call out…but as he draws near Bucky walks out from inside the hut like he just knew.He is still missing his left arm and his hair seems like it’s gotten even longer but it’s _Bucky_ and Steve’s heart still seizes up when he sees him.

They walk toward one another, Bucky’s eyes down at his feet.

They stop just a pace or two from one another and just stand there.Steve feels like his voice is broken like his throat is parched earth, cracked and brittle.He decides to try and communicate with actions rather than words.That’s always worked for them before.So he very slowly reaches out a hand, telegraphing every move to give Bucky every opportunity to move away and places it on Bucky’s shoulder.All at once the other man is moving again, stepping into him until they are pressed together.Bucky pushes his face forcefully into Steve’s shoulder.

Steve worries his knees might buckle on him.

He releases Bucky’s shoulder to shift his arm around Bucky’s back while his other winds around his waist. 

Steve feels a shudder ripple through Bucky and he squeezes him tighter.

Slowly, Bucky’s right arm comes up to wrap around Steve in return, his fingers gripping the fabric of Steve’s shirt in a fist.

They both stay like that for a long time, clutching one another as though they are both in danger of collapsing if they let go.

Maybe they are.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky whispers, voice muffled in Steve’s shoulder.

Steve swallows down his tears but his voice still shakes.“Hey, Buck,”

_-_-_

They do eventually part.Steve is relieved to see that he isn’t the only one with misty eyes.They both smile at one another nervously and then fall into a fit of laughter. 

It’s so good to see him. 

It feels so good to laugh like this.His chest aches with it like something old waking.

“So,” Bucky, gestures to the hut behind him.“Welcome to my humble home.”

Steve smiles.“It’s nice.”

“It’s still somehow bigger than that sad little studio we shared in forty-two.”

“We made it work,” Steve replies.

He doesn’t want to admit out loud that he kind of misses that place.They were poor and so was Steve’s health.His life expectancy was somewhere in the low double digits (not that that has technically changed but at least the causes have).But it all seems…simpler when compared to aliens, super soldiers, and international treaties.

“Yeah, well, if you liked that then you’ll _love_ this,” Bucky gestures for Steve to follow him.

The hut isn’t big.It’s really just one circular room with a fire pit in the middle with a cooking pot hanging over the flickering flames.There is a space with a bedroll and a pillow and what looks like personal effects which seems to serve as Bucky’s room.

Steve smiles.

This feels more comfortable then all the fancy apartments he’s occupied since coming out of the ice.Everything before has been too large…too soft.He can see why Bucky chooses to live here rather than in the city.

“I, uh…I made something for dinner,” Bucky gestures to the pot over the low burning fire.“It’s nothing much—just something the locals taught me…”

Steve shuffles over to the pot and sniffs at the buttery-brown contents that look to be some kind of bean or squash concoction.It smells rich and just shy of sweet.

“We could still order something from the city,” Bucky continues and Steve is shocked to hear something like self-consciousness in his best friend’s tone. 

“Buck,” Steve tries to cut in.

“They’ve got these drones that can get it here in, like, five minutes.”

“Bucky,” he says, stepping up and taking his shoulder again.

The other man clamps his mouth shut and looks up.

“What you got here looks great.”

_-_-_

They eat outside in the slowly gathering dusk.The surrounding trees coming to life with the sounds of night birds and insects.They’re silent for a long while eating Bucky’s dinner out of bowls by scooping it with some kind of flatbread.

It’s nice.

Steve’s just happy to be here with Bucky.

“Go ahead,” Bucky says as Steve’s sopping up the last of his dinner with his final piece bread.

Steve turns and looks at him his eyebrow raised and dinner instantly forgotten.

Bucky rolls his eyes dramatically at him.“I know you’ve got somewhere in the ballpark of a million questions and I know you’ve been holding back on asking me since I was thawed.”

“I…”

Bucky gives him an exasperated look.

Steve chuckles and looks down into his bowl and his discarded piece of bread but suddenly doesn’t feel like eating anymore.

“It’s fine, Steve.I’m not glass.I’m not gonna break.”

It comes out a bit sharp and Steve tries not to wince and fails.

Bucky sighs.“You’ve been great.Really.I’m ready to talk about it.”

“Right, okay, so…did it…work?”

“I guess it depends on what your definition of ‘work’ is,” Bucky starts.“If you mean: ‘will I lose my mind after hearing a string of code words and become a mindless Hydra murder machine’, then, yeah, it worked.If you mean: ‘do I remember everything and am I the same guy you grew up with’, then the answer’s no.”

Steve isn’t really sure where to take it from here.Suddenly all the questions that have been buzzing around inside his head all this time seem to flee, leaving his mind blank.

“I’m not that guy anymore, Steve,” Bucky says it like he’s shouldering an anvil.“I’ve still got the Winter Soldier’s memories.I still remember a lot of what I did...what was...” he takes a breath and he won’t look at Steve.“What was done to me.”

Steve hates all that pain living inside of Bucky.He hates all that self-blame.

“You’re right,” he whispers.

He can tell Bucky didn’t expect him to say that because his head whips around.

“How could you be that guy?After everything you’ve been through...that ‘guy’ you’re talking about, he shipped off to war in forty-two and he never came back.”He takes a breath.He has to finish this.He has to get it all out.He has to make Bucky understand.“I’m not waiting for him to come back.I’m not that naive.But the thing is, he’s not really gone either.You’ve been through shit that no one should ever have to go through.You survived when anyone else would have broken.But you can’t change where you came from.You can’t erase who you were.Hydra tried, they threw everything they had at it but it didn’t work.So, you’re right...but you’re also wrong.”

Bucky stares at him for a long while and then a small smile breaks through and he chuckles.

“Jesus, Stevie.How long did you spend working out that little speech?”

Steve laughs and shoves him playfully.“Shut up!I’m sharing deep feelings here.”

Bucky shakes his head.

“And I could only have thought that whole thing up if I knew you as well as I do and knew you were going to give me a speech about how you’re ‘no longer the Bucky I knew’.”

“Fucking hell, over seventy years later and you’re still a goddamned punk.”

Steve goes somber.

“I’m not that guy you knew either.The Steve you knew went into the ice and...someone different came out.”He looks away.“I haven’t gone through a tenth of what you have. But I’m the Steve who woke up to a world that had moved on.I woke up to a world without you, a world with _aliens_ , and gods.I’m the Steve who didn’t actually stop Hydra.I’m the Steve who let you fall from that train...knowing I was going to have to keep living in a world without you in it...knowing that if I had been faster or—“

“—This is the part where I cut you off before you launch into a self-deprecating speech about how you failed me.Turns out this different version of Steve Rogers still pulls this shit.”Bucky scowls.“You didn’t fail me.”

Steve wants to believe that but there is something that he knows, a truth that has lived deep inside of him, through the decades and ice.It is something he can’t stop him from confessing.

“The thing is, Buck, it _was_ my fault.You should’ve never been on that train.You were our sniper, my second in command.It was tactically unsound to bring you.But I _wanted_ you with me.I wanted you by my side like always—but this time with me being able to actually fight with you.”His head drops.“I was treating it like a game...”

“Would you shut up,” Bucky bites.

Steve’s head snaps up in surprise.

“When are you going to get it through that thick skull of yours that I _wanted_ to be there?You think I didn’t have the option to leave after being taken captive?You think I would’ve let your crazy ass zip line onto a train without me!?It was my choice, Steve. _Mine_.”

 _Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice..._ Peggy’s words echo across time to him.

He swallows.“You’re right.I’m sorry.”

“Jesus, stop apologizing already,” Bucky grouses but there’s no heat in his words.

Steve smiles.“I guess...even though we’ve changed—become different versions of ourselves—we still know each other.”

Bucky’s face finally breaks into something close to a smile and he looks up at the sky.“I suppose we do.”

The silence returns, comfortable and clear between them.The sky darkens, a tapestry of burning orange and hazy blue.

One of the Wakandan hover crafts approaches bearing some official-looking person.

“His majesty, King T’Challa, has asked that I come to see if you will be staying in the palace for the night.”The attendant asks.

Steve realizes he had kind of forgotten about sleep altogether, much less where he’d be sleeping.The thought of leaving Bucky right now...it is honestly not something he can even fathom.

“Actually, if it is okay with Bucky...”

Bucky’s eyes widen in surprise and understanding.“Yeah—yeah of course but I don’t really have a spare bedroom.”

The attendant clears their throat and moves back to the craft coming back with a bedroll and a pillow.

“His majesty anticipated this might be the case.”

Steve gawks, amazed he is apparently this transparent to everyone.

Bucky, the bastard, just laughs.

They go inside and clear a space on the floor near Bucky’s.It feels a lot like life in the trenches during the war.It’s the happiest and most comfortable Steve has been in years.

The sun is down and it is pitch black with the exception of the softly dying embers of the fire.Steve is just staring up at the ceiling, not yet willing to fall asleep.Some part of him is still afraid this is all some kind of dream.

“I never forgot you.”Bucky says into the dark.

Steve’s breath lodges in his throat.

“I knew you even when I didn’t know myself.”Bucky’s voice speeds up.“I knew you even when didn’t know what I knew.Even when I was hollowed out into a shell...you never left.You were always there, shining like a damn beacon...I just...I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks,”

“I’m not sure it’s a compliment,” Bucky teases.“You sound like a damn parasite to me.”

They both crack up then.

When they quiet Steve can tell by the way he’s breathing that Bucky’s fallen asleep.Steve lets the steadiness of it lull him to sleep for the first time in what feels like close to an eternity.

_-_-_

Bucky is out in the field outside his hut when Steve wakes the next morning and shuffles out into the glow of the early morning.Steve can’t remember the last time he slept until sunrise, it feels like a strange sort of luxury.

Waking up to find that this all isn’t some kind of dream due to a concussion or coma is even more of a luxury.When he had opened his eyes it had taken more than a few minutes to get his bearings and remember where he was.

“Sorry,” Bucky says as he tills at the earth.“I’ve got to get this plot seeded today or they won’t be ready in time for harvest.”

“Don’t worry,” Steve replies.

“I ordered us breakfast from the city,” Bucky adds.“I didn’t want to wake you by cooking.You looked so sweet and angelic.”

Steve rolls his eyes at him and looks around at the land that Bucky is working.It’s a simple life that Bucky is living but it still requires a lot of work.There are weeds to be pulled, goats to be tended, and wood to be chopped.He nods to himself and then heads over to the ax and chopping block.

“What do you think you’re doing?”Bucky asks.

“What does it look like?”Steve retorts as he hefts the ax and places the first piece of wood on the stump.

“You don’t need to do that.You’re on shore leave.”

“I want to do it.”

“You’re still a punk, you know that?”

Steve smiles.“Yeah, and you’re still a real jerk.”

They spend the day working, only taking breaks when the high tech drones bring them the food that they order.It takes them less than half the time it would have taken Bucky to do all this on his own.

“It’d go even faster if you’d let me strap you to a plow and use you as a plow horse.”Bucky jokes when they’ve finished it all up.

“Hilarious,” Steve intones dryly.

_-_-_

They are sitting under the shade of the large tree on the edge of Bucky’s property.Bucky lays sprawled out with his hand behind his head while Steve sits with his journal propped on his tucked up knees as his pencil scratches softly against the paper.It isn’t a proper sketch pad and it is certainly not the easel and paints he’s really itching for but he’ll take whatever offers some kind of scratching relief.It’s honestly a gift just to be sketching again, he can’t remember the last time he put pencil to paper for something other than notes or strategic planning.

“Whatever happened with you and that dame?”Bucky asks suddenly.

Steve glances over, unprepared for the sudden question. 

Bucky mistakes his silence for confusion.“The blond one with the mean roundhouse kick.The one you planted a kiss on under that bridge in Germany.”He looks suddenly unsure.“That happened, right?”

Steve feels the blush burning in the tips of his ears but still smiles to reassure Bucky.“Yeah, that happened.Sharon—her name is Sharon—and you and Sam were creeping on me.”

“That’s the one,” Bucky notes, his gaze turning back up to the leaves of the tree. 

There is something that passes over the planes of his face and Steve thinks that it’s relief.

Steve looks down at his journal and the sketch of Buck’s little hut, and lightly traces over lines that are already drawn. 

“It didn’t work out,” he says, hoping it sounds casual. 

Bucky lifts his head slightly to look at him and Steve reads the question easily.

“Did you know she was Peggy’s niece?”Steve asks.

Bucky frowns for a bit.“I think I might’ve but…some things still get cloudy.I—I can’t tell if I sometimes know something because I actually lived it or if my brain has made it up because it hates not remembering.”

Steve nods, one of the reports Princess Shuri sent had said something like that.

He keeps his eyes on the paper and his unfinished drawing.“Anyway, it didn’t work out…”

“Can I ask?”

Steve sighs.“It was weird…and it started to feel disrespectful to Peggy…I dunno…”

Bucky is quiet and patient.

“Sharon is an amazing woman and she deserves more than that.”

“You sure that was it?”Bucky prompts gently.

“Even if it wasn’t, it was would always be there.”Steve replies.

“You really loved her,” Bucky smiles over at him.“Peggy, I mean.”

Steve doesn’t even need to think about the answer.“Yeah, she was incredible.”

“A fucking force!”Bucky returns emphatically.“She could outrun, outshoot, and outsmart any guy enlisted...not to mention she was a damn _dish_.”

“Buck,” Steve admonishes.

“No disrespect.Just stating the facts, Rogers.”

He allows himself a small smile.“She was, wasn’t she.”

“Absolute bombshell,” Bucky agrees.

Steve sighs and drops his pencil into the crack of the journal, abandoning any pretense of sketching.“But…the thing about Peggy— _me_ and Peggy—is that…it’s this fantasy…we had this _one_ kiss and the promise of a dance…and I loved her—I really did—but we never got to have the reality of it.We never got to see each other sick, never had a moment to be...just us.We never woke up together and kissed with morning breath…” he sighs and looks up into the branches.“I’m not making any sense.”

Bucky rolls onto his side and his grey eyes are earnest.“More than you think.”

Steve snorts a laugh.“That’s only because you’ve known me all my life.”

Bucky frowns.“You saying I speak fluent punk?”

Steve smirks.“Jerk,”

Bucky smiles and flops onto his back again and resumes his tree gazing.

“Everyone thinks that I’m still hung up on her,” Steve continues.“And I miss her but I’m also happy for her.She moved on.She didn’t spend her life mourning me and I’m glad she didn’t.I’m trying to do the same thing.I just...”

“Haven’t found the right partner?”Bucky asks, one corner of his lip twisting upwards and his eyes close.

“Did Princess Shuri and her team give you telepathy?”

Bucky snorts and he seems almost sleepy.“Told you, I’m fluent in punk.”

Steve just rolls his eyes.

Something in his chest blooms, it glows like the soft embers of a campfire and it warms him in a way that makes him tingle.He smiles and lets himself bask in it.It has been so long since he’s felt this.He doesn’t have a word for it, ease, comfort, contentment?All he knows is that it’s been gone for a long time and he’s glad to have it back.

_-_-_

Steve spends four full days in Wakanda with Bucky and his little plot of land.It is the most rested that Steve has felt since before he went into the vita chamber a scrawny young man with more grit than pounds and came out the “American Ideal”. 

It’s so good—being here with Bucky—just doing the simple work of tending the crops and caring for the goats.It’s so good just talking with Bucky or sitting in silence with him.It’s all been so _good_.

And now that he has to leave all he feels is sick, a sinking feeling that writhes in his belly and makes him heavy.

Bucky is silent as he goes about his usual chores.It isn’t the companionable quiet that they so quickly reclaimed over the past few days.It is a chilly winter gust where it had before felt like a warm blanket.

 _Please don’t shut me out._ Steve pleads silently with Bucky. _Please understand.Please don’t forget me._

He knows he should say something but he doesn’t know what _to_ say.What _can_ he say?

Part of him irrationally wants to stay.It is such a strong and irrational thing that he imagines just not getting on the jet and leaving Natasha and Sam to do whatever they decide to do with themselves.He imagines just moving into this hut and never leaving.

The relief and happiness those images cause are startling, a spear of greedy joy that slashes through him only to wilt into sour shame at even having the thought in the first place.

How can he even think about abandoning his friends like that? 

He signed up for a job and he needs to see it through.

But isn’t he also abandoning Bucky?

No matter which way his mind turns he is met with something that makes him hate himself.He feels boxed in—caged and desperate.What’s the right decision here?He isn’t used to be so unsure.Even when it had been between Bucky and the Avengers that choice had been simple. Bucky had _needed_ him.He had finally found him!

Now...

Bucky is here but he also has a life, he’s recovering.

Natasha and Sam are literally waiting for him.

There are highly dangerous weapons out in the world that he feels responsible for.

He’s just gotten Bucky _back_!They finally feel the same even as they feel different.It feels like they are building something from the ashes of all their pain and loss.Building it on the bones of the men they used to be.

It feels wrong to walk away from that.

Now he’s spinning, disoriented.He’s not sure how to function with so much indecision.

A hand grips him at the curve where neck meets shoulder.

Steve looks up and finds the stormy-cloud-grey of Bucky’s eyes.

Everything stills.

He comes up for air.

Bucky gives him a nod and Steve nods back.

They always did communicate best when they didn’t speak a word.

Steve has commitments.He needs to go.He has his heading.

But...

“Can I come back?”When he asks the question it comes out timid and childish.

There is a hovercraft outside waiting to take him back to his jet.

Bucky’s head snaps up. “What?”

Steve chews the inside of his cheek.He feels stupid for asking but now the words are out there, alive and breathing between them.

“Would you be okay...if I came back again when I have some more shore leave?”

Why does he call it that?He’s not in the army anymore.There is nothing official about what he, Natasha, and Sam are doing.

Why does he feel so foolish right now?

Bucky scoffs and shakes his head.“Fucking Steve...”

Steve frowns.

“How could I not—“ Bucky stops himself, the words bitten off and swallowed back down.“You’re always welcome here.”

The relief is so sudden and intense Steve is worried it will knock him forward onto his face like an ocean wave.

“Great—that’s swell.”

Bucky laughs.

Steve smiles as he picks up his duffle bag and tosses it over his shoulder.

“You can still email, or whatever...” Bucky mutters.“Or video call...but I prefer email.”

It makes Steve so stupidly happy to hear Bucky expressing preferences.He has been denied even the simplest choices for so long...

“Okay, I’ll email whenever I can.”

Steve looks back and realizes he’s made the driver wait for longer than he feels is polite.

“All right then,” he backs towards the craft.

“Yeah,” Bucky replies quietly.

“I’ll see you soon,”

“Sure,”

Steve nods and turns, he worries that if he doesn’t do it quickly he’ll lose his nerve and never leave.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky calls out, except his voice still isn’t very loud.

Steve turns so fast his bag slaps against his back.

“Be careful out there,” Bucky instructs.“Don’t go taking on bullies bigger than you.”

“I’ll do my best,” Steve promises.

Bucky rolls his eyes.“I don’t trust that for a moment.You don’t got the sense of a mule.The only relief I have is that the Widow is with you watching your six.”

Steve laughs and waves.“I’ll be careful.”

Bucky just lifts his hand in farewell.

Steve turns and jumps onto the hovercraft and doesn’t look back.

_-_-_

“Well,” Natasha drawls when she saunters up into the jet.“Don’t you look well-rested.”

Steve doesn’t look at her and just moves over so Sam can pilot.“You guys ready to go?”

“She’s got a point, Cap,” Sam agrees as he slides into the pilot’s seat.

Steve sighs and continues to make himself look busy.“It was good to take it easy for a bit.”He grudgingly admits.

“Uh, oh, Wilson,” Natasha smirks.“I think our captain might have been replaced with a clone.”

“Or a shape-shifting alien,” Sam hypothesizes solemnly.

“Thank you both for your unwavering support,” Steve deadpans.

_-_-_

Steve does come back.It takes nearly two months but he makes it happen.Sam makes a joke about never seeing him so committed to R and R while Natasha just gives him one of those knowing smiles of hers.It makes him think that she knows something he doesn’t.

He can’t help it.

He’s basically chomping at the bit to get back to Wakanda—back to Bucky.

They had messaged back and forth as they had agreed and video called once.But it’s never enough.Bucky is alway so reserved and distant in these conversations.It’s nothing like how it was while he was there.

This time he leaves Sam and Natasha in Gyeongju, South Korea.

Natasha claims to have a contact there and business to attend to and Sam still seems to be trying to—unsuccessfully—woo her.

“So, kimchi dumplings?”Sam asks as he follows Natasha.

“As long as there’s soju,”Natasha replies, teasing as always.

“Oh, it’ll be there,” Sam assures.“But I learned my lesson in Spain.I’m done trying to out drink you.”

“I warned you,” she says.

“I’ll see you two at the rendezvous point on Jeju Island in seven days.”Steve calls back.

“Yes, sir,” Sam answers with a cheeky salute.

“Don’t forget,” Natasha teases.

“I’ll be there.”Steve retorts tightly.

“Have fun,” Natasha practically sings as the door closes.

Steve smiles despite himself.

_-_-_

“We’ve never talked about you chasing after me for over a year and me hiding away in Romania.”Bucky notes out of the blue.

They’re sitting under that big tree outside of Bucky’s hut again.It has quickly become one of their favorite spots to engage in their new favorite pass time.That pass time being Bucky bringing up something from their shared history and Steve sketching out a scene from it.

Steve is really glad he brought a proper sketchpad and some charcoal this time.

Steve shrugs and keeps sketching.It’s a farmhouse they had stayed in with the Howling Commandos back during the war. 

“There’s a lot for us to talk about...and I didn’t want to force you to talk about anything you weren’t ready to.”

Bucky smiles that smile that never seems to reach his eyes.“I knew you were looking—“

“—of course I was,” Steve can’t help but cut in. 

“But I also knew I wasn’t safe,” Bucky presses onward.“I knew that all that shit Hydra had stuffed into my brain was still there...slithering around inside of me...just a few words away from breaking loose.I couldn’t risk it—not after what I did to you over the Potomac.I knew you wouldn’t listen to reason—that you’d stick to me like gum on the bottom of a shoe once you found me—you never did have the most developed sense of self-preservation.”

Steve knows Bucky’s making a joke, opening the door for them to leave this serious discussion through a familiar route.

Steve doesn’t take the bait.

Bucky hears the answer in Steve’s silence and sighs before continuing.

“Even after they unthawed me here it took Shuri weeks to convince me I wasn’t a threat to you anymore.”

Steve isn’t sure what to say now.He feels like he should say something, offer some kind of comfort.

“Bucky...”

“I still dream about it, you know...” Bucky’s speaking like he can’t stop himself.“I dream about them telling me you died...that you’d gone down somewhere over the Atlantic.”His eyes go a bit distant and glassy.“They just kept showing me news clips and newspaper articles about it—they wouldn’t stop...I think that’s what broke me.”

Steve finally drops his sketchpad onto his lap and reaches over and grabs for Bucky’s hand.

Bucky squeezes back.He blinks a couple times and his eyes seem to focus again and he clears his throat.

“Anyway, I dream about that and...and sometimes I dream about...that it’s me who did it...” he pulls his hand free of Steve’s.“That’s why I haven’t let them give me a new arm—it’s always that fucking metal arm that does it.”

“Hey,” Steve says, his voice edged with authority.

Bucky’s head twists to look at him in surprise.

“I’m here.You’re here.All that shit is out of your head.We did it.We beat the odds.”

Bucky nods at him but he still looks sad.

He doesn’t say much of anything the rest of the night and Steve decides to leave him to his thoughts.He’s already worried that them talking is the cause and he doesn’t want Bucky to feel like he doesn’t have a say in what he does and doesn’t talk about...about whether or not he speaks.

He honors it even if it feels like it’s gutting him.

_-_-_

Bucky’s scream splits the night, severing the sleeping silence like a knife of scorching, rusted iron.

Steve is up and ready in a fighting stance before he’s even fully conscious.

He shakes his head violently, the sleep fleeing to the corners of his mind and vision.

“Nononononononononono!”

_Bucky!_

Steve turns and sees his best friend sitting up, eyes wide, his whole body trembling.He’s looking down at his hand in horror.

“Steve!Oh, god, Steve!No!I’m sorry!”He cries out.

To Steve’s horror tears start to trail down Bucky’s cheeks in slow thick rivulets.

Steve springs into action instantly the sleep well and truly gone.

He scrambles over to Bucky’s sleeping mat and crouches down in front of him.He grips his shoulders firmly and brings their faces close together.

“Bucky,” he says, keeping his voice soft and soothing. 

He tries to cast it in the safe downy tones his mother used to use when he was sick—the same tone Bucky would use when he was cleaning up one of Steve’s cuts after a fight he had no business getting into (after he’d already cussed him out angrily of course).

Bucky keeps shaking his head.“I’m sorry, Steve!”He chokes on a sob.“Oh, God!”

Each of Bucky’s screams feels worse than any knife or bullet wound Steve has ever had.He doesn’t know what to do.He doesn’t know how to help.He can fight aliens, megalomaniac sentient robots but he’s constantly powerless to help the most important person in his life. 

He’s wracking his brain for something, trying to think about what Sam would do in this situation—because Sam would definitely know how to help right now—when he remembers their conversation this afternoon.He remembers what Bucky had said his nightmares are about.

“Hey,” he urges gently.“It’s me.It’s Steve.I’m fine.I’m alive.”

He keeps saying it over and over like a mantra—like a prayer.Bucky stops screaming out but his eyes are still blank and he hasn’t stopped shaking.It goes on so long that Steve isn’t sure who he’s saying it for anymore.

“Steve?”Bucky asks after what seems like an eternity, his voice soft and wet. 

“Yeah, Buck, it’s me.I’m here.”

Bucky takes in a shuddering breath.He wets his chapped lips.He closes his eyes for a long time and then opens them.

He reaches up and brings his hand to Steve’s face.His thumb roams across the planes of Steve’s cheeks, the jut of his brows, and the line of his jaw.He pushes and strokes like he is a potter molding clay.

Steve lets him.But he never loosens his grip on the other man’s shoulders.He just lets Bucky’s wild eyes scan his face and his thumb and fingers explore.He lets him reassure himself of what’s real and right in front of him.

“You’re alive,” Bucky sounds so unsure.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, heart hammering in his chest.“Yeah, I’m alive and still a pain in your ass.”

“You’re real…” Bucky pants.

“Yeah,”

Bucky lets out something close to a whimper and bows his head.Steve moves his hands up to cup Bucky’s neck, rubbing his own fingers into the nape and the soft hairs there, matted and slick with sweat.He leans forward a bit so that their foreheads are pressed together.

“I’m with you, Buck.” Steve whispers.“Till the end of the line, remember?”

Bucky pushes back into him, _hard;_ so hard it feels like their foreheads might crack with the force of it.

“You’re alive.You’re real.You’re here...with me...”

“That’s right,” Steve assures and now _he_ feels like crying.“I’m not going anywhere.You’re stuck with me.We’re gonna live together forever because of this damn serum.”He’s rambling and he knows it but he can’t seem to stop.

Bucky laughs.It’s shaky but it’s not screams or cries.It feels awake.

Neither of them moves.They’re galvanized.Their bodies synching up, chests rising and falling in a deep—almost panting—unison.Their pulses matching.It’s like he can feel Bucky coming back into himself and he’s afraid that if he moves or says anything he’ll break the spell.

Suddenly Bucky’s breath hitches and he tips his face up and their noses brush alongside one another.They are so close.With a startling clarion awareness, he realizes just _how_ close.everything feels hot and charged and Steve forgets everything else around him.There is only Bucky and every place where they’re touching.There is only the tepid fanning of their breaths mingling and fanning across his lips. 

Buck moves his head a fraction of an inch closer.Steve realizes that his head has tilted in response without his permission…

“We’ve never...uh...before...?” Bucky’s voice is husky.Steve assumes it has to be from the screaming.“Done…romantic stuff…?”

Steve shakes his head in response, somehow parsing out the question through the muzzy mist that seems to be blanketing his brain.All that serves to do is to cause the hairs of Bucky’s beard to brush against his lips. 

It’s Steve’s turn to tremble.

“No,” Steve manages to whisper weakly.“Uh, we haven’t...”

Bucky nods and those damn beard hairs are at it again and this time the shiver scuttles all the way down right to—

“I thought I would’ve remembered that...” Bucky sounds relieved but Steve’s not sure about exactly what he’s relieved about.

And then Bucky leans in the hairsbreadth forward and plants his lips lightly on Steve’s. 

It isn’t much.It’s just Bucky’s dry lips on his. 

It is _everything_. 

It’s the entirety of the universe distilled into one single point of contact.He’s fairly certain that his heart stops beating in his chest.He’s terrified and exhilarated all at once and it feels like his nerves are racing in all directions at once.He feels like he might rip apart into a thousand pieces.

Bucky doesn’t move either.He doesn’t move to deepen the kiss but he doesn’t move to break them apart either.

Steve doesn’t know what to do but his body apparently does because all at once he’s angling his head just a bit and parting his lips.The hands that cup Bucky’s jaw gently urge Bucky in closer.

That seems to encourage Bucky who lets out a sigh and pushes forward eagerly. 

And then they are kissing— _really_ kissing.

Steve knows he should stop.He knows that Bucky is probably confused and half-delirious with the nightmare he just had—but he can’t stop.He just keeps going like he is possessed.He doesn’t know _how_ to stop now that he knows what this feels like—now that he knows what it’s like to have Bucky this close—what it’s like to taste him and to feel the scratch of his (admittedly softer than he’d have guessed) beard against his skin—what it feels like for Bucky to go soft in his hands like he finally feels safe. 

One of his hands slips up to the back of Bucky’s head and his fingers wind their way into his hair. 

Bucky’s palm is pressed to Steve’s chest, not pushing, just flat and firm like he’s trying to feel Steve’s heartbeat.

Steve’s not sure how long they go on for—long enough for his lips to ache and his skin around his mouth at his cheeks to burn slightly.

When they do eventually stop to breathe properly Bucky just let his face fall into Steve’s as they both pant.

“You’re good at that,” Bucky says quietly.

That pulls a surprised chuckle out of Steve.“Don’t sound so surprised.”

Bucky shoves at him.It’s playful and carries none of the force that Steve knows that he’s capable of.Then Bucky yawns.He honest to fucking god _yawns_!He lowers himself back down onto his bed and turns to lay on his side.

Steve doesn’t know what to do.He just kneels there in something close to shock.He’s terrified that this has all been done in some kind of fugue state Bucky’s having or that he was never really awake in the first place.

Then Bucky’s tugging him down, pulling his arm around him so that Steve is big spoon.

Steve follows his lead but his mind is reeling with everything that has just happened. 

Bucky makes a content sound in the back of his throat and seems to drop off into to sleep again easily, leaving Steve alone and feeling like he has crossed a line he had no business crossing.He doesn’t know what any of this means about him, about Bucky, about _anything_.He feels like he maybe took advantage here. 

He doesn’t think there is any way he can sleep, but with Bucky’s back to his chest and their hands joined he finds himself being rocked to sleep by the steady rhythm of Bucky’s breathing nonetheless.

_-_-_

Steve wakes up alone and on the verge of panic.He shoots up off of the sleeping mat, it’s like there is a fist inside of his chest hammering at the bone and trying to break free.He stumbles out of the hut, the curtain that serves as the door tangles around him and he flails free of it.He breaks into the morning sunlight, terrified that he’s ruined everything, that he has betrayed Bucky’s trust and that the other man has gone on the run again and that this time he will never find him again.

Once his eyes adjust to being outside, however, Bucky is there, poking listlessly at the ground with a shovel.He doesn’t look up at Steve’s dramatic exit.

“I’m really sorry about last night,” Bucky says, eyes never lifting, even as Steve begins to slowly walk towards him.

Steve doesn’t know what he remembers about last night so he starts with the first part.

“Nightmares are normal—”

“—I’m talking about kissing you!”Bucky snaps impatiently, jamming the shovel hard into the earth.

“That—that was okay too…” Steve replies, not really sure what he means by that, only sure he doesn’t want Bucky to feel bad about it or think that he is angry about it.

Bucky finally looks up, his expression confused.

Steve feels all the blood rise up to his face and rubs at the back of his neck.“I mean…I kissed you too…”

“Why?”Bucky demands, his eyes hard.

“I…I don’t know, Buck…why’d you kiss me?”

Bucky kicks at the dirt in frustration.“I—I don’t know…you—your just so—your _part_ of me…every bit of me feels like it’s all tangled up with every bit of you.I don’t know where I begin and you end…” he finally releases the shovel and scrubs at his face with his hand.“I feel a _lot_ of things for you…every one of them intense.”

“Buck,” Steve ventures a step closer.“You’ve known me your whole life…”

Bucky eyes pin him and Steve changes tactics.

“You’re the most important person in the world to me.” 

Bucky’s features shift into something…hopeful?

“I feel a lot of things about you too.Shit, Buck, I basically went to war with one hundred and seventeen countries for you.”

That finally gets Bucky to laugh.“That is a bit Homeric.”

Steve smiles and takes a risk.He slowly reaches out, making it clear what it is he’s aiming to do.Gently, he takes Bucky’s fingers in his hand.“Yeah, what can I say, you inspire it in me.”

Bucky looks down and shifts his hand hesitantly so they are actually holding hands. 

“No matter what happens—” he squeezed Bucky’s hand.“ _No matter what_.I’m always going to be your best friend.”He takes a step closer.“And if maybe there’s something more here…I’d be willing to try…be willing to see where this could go…”

Bucky snorts a laugh.“Just like that, Rogers?”

Steve shrugs.“I’m open-minded.And I love you.”

That seems to catch Bucky off guard and he lowers his eyes.“I don’t want to force you…”

“No one’s forcing,”Steve interjects.“We can take it nice and slow.We can see what this is.And if either of us gets uncomfortable or decides they want to stop, we do.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just not.What if one of us _does_ want more and the other doesn’t?What if this…what if this just ruins it?”

“There’s nothing that could make me not want to be your best friend.”

Bucky jerks his hand free from Steve’s to rake it through his hair.“That’s what makes this all so confusing!”

Steve isn’t sure what about this is upsetting Bucky.He thought that would be reassuring to hear, that it would be comforting to hear that Steve won’t let anything come between them—that he won’t let anything keep him from being Bucky’s friend.

“How am I supposed to know that this is actually what you want?”Bucky demands. “I know you, Steve, you’re a self-sacrificing bastard!”

It’s far harsher than Steve is expecting and he recoils inadvertently.

“I wouldn’t put it past you to do this just because you think it will help me recover or because you’re afraid rejecting me might derail me somehow.”

And now Steve is angry, it shoves forward and he stumbles a bit with the momentum of it.“Were you not _there_ last night?”

It’s Bucky’s turn to be taken aback.

“Do you think I’m incapable of being selfish?Because I have news for you, I am incredibly selfish.”He can feel the rant surging up and out of him but he can’t stop.“If I was selfless I would have _stopped_ last night.I would have made us wait and talk before I acted.If I wasn’t so damn selfish I wouldn’t feel this messed up happiness that you’re here with me now—in this _time_!”He knows that his voice has risen to the point of yelling but he can’t make himself stop.“What kind of person is thankful for that when it means being thankful that you went through all those fucked up things!?”

It’s all so much.

He hadn’t realized that he has been feeling and thinking all of these things.He hadn’t let himself really accept that he wants whatever it is that’s happening between him and Bucky.But now, faced in Bucky’s doubts and fears—faced with Bucky’s overestimation of who Steve is…he just breaks.It’s all coursing through him thick and pustulating.

Bucky stares at him with wide eyes for a moment before his face pulls into a scowl and he stalks towards Steve.Steve is certain he is about to get punched.He doesn’t flinch or pull away.He deserves it.

Bucky’s hand flashes up.

The punch doesn’t come.

Instead, Bucky’s hand grips Steve’s neck and he yanks Steve towards him and shoves their mouths together.Their teeth collide.A sting of pain bolts from Steve’s mouth to the back of his skull.It is nothing like their kiss from the night before, it’s a bit more like fighting than kissing.Bucky pushes and Steve pushes back.At the same time, it also feels a bit like surrender.

“Fine,” Bucky sighs when they eventually part.“Let’s be selfish idiots together.”

Steve laughs.It feels like something has been taken off of his chest, some crushing weight.

“Yeah—I like that—let’s do that.” He replies.

_-_-_

They’re walking through the Wakandan forest.Steve has no real clue where they’re going or what they’re doing but Bucky seems to know his way around the area.

Steve likes this.

He likes following Bucky’s lead.

He likes walking with him, their war-calloused hands woven together.

They do this a lot—hold hands that is.They’ve been true to their original agreement and take things slow.Being with Bucky—being with him like _this_ —isn’t as hot and steamy as Steve would have expected given Bucky’s history with dating.Mostly they hold hands and cuddle at night.They kiss, they do a lot of kissing.They’ve done enough for Steve to have no doubts about how he feels about kissing Bucky Barnes.

He fucking loves it.

Steve knows that people are pretty preoccupied with sex.He need look no further than Natasha’s meddling in his love life or Tony’s pestering questions about Steve’s virginity or lack thereof.But honestly, Steve thinks he could be happy if it is only ever just this.

Not that he hasn’t _thought_ about all the other stuff since he and Bucky decided to do this.He’s thought about it a lot, those thoughts popping into his mind and making him clammy and his skin feel too tight for his body.He does his best to push those thoughts away as soon as they pop up.

So, yes, Steve has had those thoughts.Steve is pretty sure he _wants_ to take that step.But if Bucky doesn’t want it—if they never take things any further—Steve could live the rest of his life with Bucky just like this and be totally content.

He never expected to have anything close to this.It feels greedy to want more.

Steve has learned not to expect much from the universe.It tends to disappoint you.

He is pulled from his relationship musing when he catches Bucky frowning over at him thoughtfully.When Steve turns to look at him Bucky lips widen into a smile. 

“Did you really pull down a helicopter with your bare hands to keep me from getting away?”Bucky asks the beginnings of a laugh at the fringes of his voice.

This still happens.Some of Bucky’s memories aren’t clear to him and he will look to Steve to clarify things when he can.

Steve ducks his head and chuckles self-consciously, cheeks blooming with warmth.“Yeah…yeah, that happened.”

“Impressive,” Bucky knocks his shoulder into Steve’s.“And flattering.”

Steve feels the warmth in his cheeks spread to his ears.“I didn’t even know I could do that…I was just terrified of losing you again.”He strokes his thumb along the length of Bucky’s index finger. 

When he looks back at his life, a life that Bucky fills every single corner and edge of, it starts to make sense.He can see how they’ve come to this place in their relationship.It seems so obvious with the clarity of hindsight.

“I’d just gotten you back after two years of searching…I couldn’t…” he doesn’t finish.He doesn’t like dwelling on that time—especially now. 

Bucky squeezes his hand.“Hey, I’m sorry…I really am…I just couldn’t risk hurting you.”

That breaks Steve’s heart.Impulsively, he leans in and kisses Bucky hard, not worried about skill or impressing him, just needing to communicate everything he feels.

Bucky makes a broken sound in his throat and stops walking to kiss him back like he needs to be sure to give Steve all of his attention.

When they pull apart they stay close, foreheads touching.

“I know,” Steve replies.“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

Bucky shakes his head.“You’ve done so much for me, Stevie—gave up so much.”

“Worth it.”

“I don—”

“You saw me when no one else did,” Steve cuts him off.“Really _saw_ me.You were there for me when I had nothing.You worked extra jobs, moved in with me, stole, fought, all to keep me safe.I’ll never stop owing you for that.”

“This ain’t a ledger,”

“Then stop talking about owing,” Steve counters.“We take care of each other.It’s what we do.It’s what we’ve always done.It’s a fundamental truth.”

Bucky smiles and that makes Steve’s stomach erupt in a flurry of strange but pleasant butterflies.Then he gives Steve a quick kiss like he’s sealing those words with his approval.

Bucky steps back and resumes their walk.He never lets go of Steve’s hand.“So, what’d you do when you weren’t saving the world and trying to hunt me down?”

Steve shrugs.“Neither of those things left me much time.Mostly I tried to work my way through my list of things in the future to catch up on.Sometimes I’d hang out with Sam.”Something strikes Steve and he debates whether or not to say it out loud.“And I, uh, maybe spent a bit of time looking for a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn...”

One of Bucky’s eyebrows cocks and his grin is rakish.“Really now, Rogers?”

Steve hates how easily he blushes.He’s not sure he’s ever blushed this much in his entire life.

“That’s a bit presumptuous, don’t you think?”Bucky continues mercilessly.“A guy might get the idea that you had _plans_ in mind.”

Steve shoots Bucky an indignant glare and tries to jerk his hand free but Bucky only laughs and holds on tight.

“I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking—I didn’t know I felt like _this,”_ Steve sputters.“I just thought...you’d need a place to stay is all...”

Bucky brings their hands up to press his lips into the back of Steve’s hand.

He smiles into Steve’s skin. “How did we only just get here?”

Steve’s been wondering that himself. “I mean, we didn’t really have time. With me being so sick all the time, you working multiple jobs, then the war...”

“Several decades on ice...” Bucky adds

Steve chuckles. “A couple of years of cat and mouse.”

“And a bit of amnesia and brainwashing.”

Bucky’s chuckling lightly but Steve’s still not ready to laugh at all that just yet.

“I honestly never thought it was an option,” Steve continues thoughtfully. “It wasn’t exactly accepted.”

“You mean it wasn’t _legal_ ,” Bucky corrects.

That’s something Steve definitely likes about the future.You’re free to love.Steve has never understood why people care so much. The world can be so cold and ruthless and love can be so hard to find. Why regulate it and make it even harder?

“That was a contributing factor,” Steve agrees. “Honestly, I just felt lucky to have you as my best friend.”

“That’s getting close to the owing thing,” Bucky cautions.

“I’m just saying...” Steve replies.

“I always noticed, you know,” Bucky ventures.

Steve tilts his head in question. 

“Noticed fellas—noticed _you,”_ he licks his lips and keeps his gaze ahead.“You’re eyes...that beak of yours...”

Steve nudges him. “Hey!”

Bucky swoops in and plants a quick kiss on Steve’s nose.

Steve grins foolishly, feeling younger than he can ever remember feeling.

“How about you?”Bucky asks.“Did you ever...notice fellas before?”

Steve thinks about it for a long time.He thinks about the people he’s been attracted to.It’s a surprisingly small list. 

“I’m not sure it works like that for me,” he starts.He’s never really spoken this out loud.“I...I have to really know the person...there needs to be a connection—I mean, I can acknowledge people are objectively attractive—but I’m not _really_ attracted to someone unless that’s there.”

“Oh,” Bucky remarks.

“So, yeah, I’ve always noticed you,” Steve says, guessing why Bucky was asking.“I’ve got the sketchbooks filled with pages of your stubborn mug to prove it.”

That finally earns Steve a blush from Bucky, his smile more than a little pleased.

_-_-_

Steve’s time in Wakanda relentlessly slips away leaving him even sooner than it had his last trip.Never before has Steve ever felt so tempted to walk away from a mission, to completely shuck his duties.

He won’t do that.

But it’s a near thing.

He has two days left before he’s due to collect Sam and Natasha when Bucky decides to show him the lake.

“Got more free time than I know what to do with,” Bucky grouses playfully.“What with you helping with all my chores.”

It’s true.

Between two super soldiers, they get through the work in the field and the duties around the hut before noon.It leaves them with more leisure time than either of them is used to having.

Hence today’s walk to the lake.

“I spent a lot of time here,”Bucky says as they stare out over the clear blue waters.“Shuri was with me the whole way, she really helped me.”

Steve tries hard to swallow down the guilt, the hurt, and the jealousy that rises up within him.He knows that it’s irrational and unfair.He just wishes he had been here, he had wanted to be there for Bucky the moment he was freed from cryo.

“I’m glad you had someone.”He manages, knowing that it comes out stiff as old wood.

Bucky’s eyes slide over to him and then back over to the lake.“I told you, it wasn’t safe, Stevie…I had to be sure.”

Steve takes a breath.He isn’t being fair.It’s done.

“I know.”

“You’re here now.”Bucky assures.

 _Only to leave again._ Steve thinks bitterly.

Before they can get into it there is a sudden chorus of cheers and cries.A smile breaks out across Bucky’s face, wide and bright.A mob of young children instantly swarms them, none of them coming up much higher than either his or Bucky’s hips.

They mill about Bucky, calling up to him and chattering away with him in a language that Steve doesn’t understand.

“What are they saying?”Steve asks.“What’s that they’re calling you?”

Bucky ducks his head.“They call me the ‘White Wolf’.”

“White Wolf?”Steve laughs.

Bucky only shrugs but he’s still smiling as the children tug at him.

Steve just watches, basking in the warm sunshine-glow of that smile.

The children continue to call out to them as they sprint ahead and jump into the water.

“They want us to go swimming...” Bucky’s arm goes out in a helpless gesture of surrender.

Steve can’t stop thinking about just how beautiful he is.

_-_-_

They spend the afternoon in the lake tossing the squealing children up into the air so the can come splashing back down into the water.They hoist them onto their shoulders and let the children have dueling contests to dislodge one another.All the while Steve stares at Bucky and grins.Bucky stares and grins right back.

As the sun begins to droop, the children climb out of the lake waving and calling back to them as they run off to what Steve assumes are their homes.

“You’re really good with them,” Steve notes.“You were always good with kids.”

Bucky shrugs.“I spent a lot of time with them.They helped me recover too in away.”

They go quiet and Steve is suddenly very aware of the fact they’ve both stripped down to the waist and are standing alone in the middle of a lake.Before he can really wrap his head around that, however, Bucky’s hand is suddenly up and at the center of Steve’s chest pushing him hard, and sending him fumblingbackwards into the water.

Steve comes up spluttering only to have to fend off more of Bucky’s dunking attacks.When Steve finally manages to get his feet properly underneath himself, he retaliates by launching himself at Bucky.It’s a full-body collision, two freight trains crashing, it would cause damage if they weren’t who they are.They go under in a tangle of slippery-wet limbs.The cool water envelops them.Hands slide against bare skin.They crest, breathless and gasping for air only to go under again.

They keep at it for a long time, laughing and struggling as they both work to try and gain the upper hand over the other.It’s like they are children all over again, roughhousing in the schoolyard.Only this time Bucky doesn’t have to treat Steve with kid gloves.They can both give it their all.

They are clamped together in the middle of the lake panting and grunting, neither of them giving an inch.Steve looks up and their eyes seem to lock and suddenly something shifts.The air between them goes tight and charged, seeming to hum around them.

Steve isn’t sure who leans in first but all at once they are kissing.There is something different about this kiss.It feels unlike any that came before it.It’s electrified with adrenaline because they have been wrestling.Everything is cast in the honeyed hues of sunset. 

Something about the water changes it.They are bare-chested, skin to skin, everything slick and wet. 

Bucky’s tongue slips into Steve’s mouth and it sends a jolt from his mouth right down his spine.His hips thrust forward without his permission and he realizes just how turned on he is, how strongly his body is reacting.His mind explodes like the Fourth of July at the realization that Bucky’s body is responding in kind.

He thrusts again.

Bucky thrusts back.

Steve is overtaken by the strange urge to jump up and wrap his legs around Bucky’s waist and have Bucky hold him up.He has never once had a thought even remotely like that.He feels a bit like some dame in a romance movie.The thought that Bucky is physically _able_ to hold him up if he were to act on this thought sends a jolt straight down to his gut and then straight into his crotch.

“We better head home before a gator gets us.”Bucky mutters, voice low and all gravel and smoke.

Steve’s toes curl into the cold mud and he can only manage a nod.

Their journey back to Bucky’s hut moves at a far less leisurely pace than the one that brought them to the lake earlier in the day.It is honestly just short of a run.They don’t say a word the whole way.Steve feels a shivering anticipation ululating through his body.He isn’t sure what’s about to happen but he knows _something_ is going to happen.

It feels like his lungs might balloon right out of his chest and fly away into the darkening sky.

They manage to get back to Bucky’s hut with all Steve’s organs still intact and inside of his body.Once inside, Bucky flings the curtain closed across the threshold and they snap together like two ends of elastic that have been stretched too far.It’s messy and inelegant as they stumble backward toward their sleeping rolls.

Steve’s hands begin roaming over Bucky’s body, eager to touch every inch of his best friend.When his hands drift down low on Bucky’s waist Bucky makes and encouraging sound that Steve can only categorize as a growl and he presses impossibly closer.Steve’s fingers curl under the waist of Bucky’s lake-sodden pants and he tugs down ever so slightly.

“Buck, I...I don’t really know what I’m doing here,” Steve admits on a shaky breath.

Bucky laughs a quivering laugh.“Me neither,”

That makes Steve feel better—less self-conscious.

“But I think we can figure it out.”Bucky assures.

His mouth is back on Steve’s, hot and hungry.He pulls Steve down with him onto their bedrolls positioning Steve on top of him.

The change in position brings back the insecurities and the uncertainty.

“Is this okay?”Steve asks.“Do you need me to slow things down?”

Steve can feel Bucky’s smile against his lips.“Stevie, I’m gonna need you to dial the gentlemanly behavior down to about a two.I’m am very much consenting—enthusiastically consenting.”

Bucky’s hand finds one of Steve’s and he begins guiding back down to his pants and that action along with Bucky’s verbal consent is all the permission Steve needs.He kisses his way along Bucky’s jaw and then down his neck.He trails the kisses all the way down Bucky’s chest and stomach.He loves the way that Bucky shivers underneath him, how his breath hitches.

He pulls himself back and begins the oddly challenging labor of liberating Bucky of his lake-sodden pants.When he manages to get them down to his thighs he’s a bit overwhelmed at the sight of Bucky and forgets what he’s doing.

“Everything all right there, Rogers?”Bucky prods, eyebrows flirtily askew.

Steve startles a bit, face boiling, and doggedly returns to the matter at hand having to stand to fight them down to Bucky’s ankles.

Bucky only laughs at him.

Once he’s worked the pants free and has tossed them aside, Bucky rises up, his singular arm going around Steve’s waist as he mouths at the muscles of Steve’s stomach.

“God, look at you,” Bucky murmurs reverently.“All this muscle...so fucking gorgeous...”

Steve’s pants are getting incredibly uncomfortable and he’s worried this is going to come to a very quick and embarrassing end if Bucky keeps talking like that.

Even singlehanded Bucky is able to begin working Steve’s pants down and off of him.Steve still has to help to get them off the rest of the way triumphantly kicking them aside.

And that’s it.

They’re naked.

It makes Steve’s mouth go dry.

He can’t handle the distance between them and falls down onto Bucky.It’s more of a crash than a graceful union of bodies.

“Shit, sorry,” Steve grunts.

Bucky just chuckles.

They’re jumbled and poking each other and Steve is convinced that this is all going to go totally wrong—he still isn’t sure exactly _what_ is actually supposed to be happening.

“Here,” Bucky whispers.“Just slide over this way.”

Bucky’s hand is at Steve’s side nudging him over just a bit.He slots one leg between Steve’s and then tugs him down for a kiss and—

_—Oh!Oh shit!_

It’s like everything is suddenly in place and just moving down to kiss rubs their dicks together and—

“Oh, fuck, that’s good,” Steve gasps out.

He can feel Bucky’s grin against his lips.“Yeah, that’s real nice, just keep—“

It’s Bucky’s turn to lose his breath as Steve gives his hips a little experimental thrust.

“ _Fuck_ , Steve…”

Bucky’s hips stutter upward to meet Steve’s.His vision goes dark for a moment and he’s pretty sure he says something very embarrassing but right now he doesn’t care.

Steve is actually a little worried that he might be dying.His heart is beating so fast it feels like a stampede of hooves pounding behind his breast bone.There’s a pressure in his ears.And every single one of his cells feels like they are scorching.He’s never felt so good.He’s never felt this _close_ to someone.

They keep moving and Bucky’s mouth keeps running.

At some point, Steve gets an idea in his head about reaching his hand down between their pressed bodies to grip them both in his hand and jerk them together, but Bucky’s arm is wrapped so tight around him, pressing them in like he wants to forcibly merge them together, that it stays an idea.A very sexy idea.

It doesn’t matter.

Between still being a little damp from the lake, the Wakandan humidity, and the sweat on their bodies, everything has become hot and slick in the best kind of way, their skin softly sucking together everywhere they touch. 

Steve can feel a growing tightening warmth pulsing low in his spine and radiating out to his belly.He wants to chase that sensation and boil it over but he also doesn’t want this to end.

“ _Steve,_ ” Bucky groans out, like Steve’s name is absolution.

They are pressed so close that Steve feels every tremor that moves through Bucky.He feels the hot, wet spirt between them.Steve’s whole body goes taught like he’s strung out like a piano chord.He just manages to pull back to try and kiss Bucky but only manages to push his gasping mouth into Bucky’s as he comes undone.He whimpers and groans as that glowing sensation blows through him.

It’s like he’s made of solid lead and somehow also feather-light and floating.

Bucky strokes his fingers up and down his spine gently, holding him as he trembles through it.

“I love you,” Steve blurts without thinking.

Bucky kisses his cheeks, his chin, his ear, his forehead in a tender response.

_-_-_

Steve has heard stories about how happiness and love alter time, makes it speed up or slow down.That’s how the night before had been.The minutes stretching out syrupy-slow into a string of blissful eternity as they explored the next step in their relationship.It was like the universe was finally letting them reclaim some of their lost time.There had been moments of scorching intensity, fueled by their desire.There had been languid moments full of such loving gentleness that they brought the sting of tears to Steve’s eyes.

Now, awake and with the sunlight filtering in through the curtains and spreading a soft amber lattice across Bucky’s skin, Steve feels worry creeping in once more.He lays on his side, staring at Bucky, sprawled out on his belly his face turned the other way.The sheet resting at his lower back.

He’s been watching for a long time now, the pleasure of it startlingly close to pain.

Steve remembers the things he did last night, all the things he had said.He worries that in the light of day Bucky might be ashamed, that he might regret everything they’d done.He had said that if Bucky ever changed his mind, ever decided that he didn’t want them to be like this, that he would honor that—and he would—but it would hurt like hell to try and go back after this.

He is an idiot to worry.

Bucky stirs, rolling over onto his back and stretching sleepily out in all directions.He turns his head towards Steve, hair completely debauched and a muzzy smile on his lips.

“Mornin, handsome,” she says as he rolls over further to give Steve a series of long, lazy kisses, morning breath and all.

_-_-_

When the time comes of finally leave it is far worse than the last time.When they had woken that morning, tangled up together in a knot of naked limbs Bucky had grown cold and quiet, going so far as to avoid touching Steve.

“I’m just trying to prepare,” Bucky explains at Steve’s hurt look when Bucky pulls his hand away when their fingers graze by accident.“I know it’s fucked up.I’m sorry.”

Steve shakes his head.“It’s all right, Buck, I get it.”

It’s true.He gets it.

It sucks.

It hurts.

It isn’t fair.

But he gets it.

Steve hears the hum of the hovercraft as it arrives.It’s like Steve’s stomach has been filled to the brim with cement.He feels sick in a way that he hasn’t since he got the serum.He feels like there is something he needs to say, something that will make this all okay but there are no words.

Bucky is a silent specter, a staring silhouette of the man he had been up until now.

Woodenly, Steve picks up his bag.

How is he supposed to leave after this?How is he supposed to leave it like this?

Steve looks at Bucky feeling helpless and small.Bucky doesn’t meet his eyes, his gaze on the floor.

“Be safe out there,” Bucky mutters.

Steve nods biting his lower lip.“Of course…”

Everything in him screams to go to Bucky, to wrap his arms around him and squeeze them together, to kiss him and tell him how insanely in love with him he already is—maybe has been since forever.Instead, he tries to honor what Bucky needs and keeps his distance.

“I’ll come back to you—“

Bucky rushes forward, his hand goes to the back of Steve’s head fingers winding into his hair as he buries his face in Steve’s neck.

It’s reflex to grip him back, to press a clumsy kiss to Bucky’s ear.“I swear.”

“I should be going with you—“ Bucky says into Steve’s skin.“I should be out there—“

Steve pulls back and grips Bucky’s face in his hands.“None of that.You need to be here, recovering.Your fight is done.I’m the idiot who created this mess.But once this is as close to done as it can be, I’ll stop too.We’ll rest.We’ll be together.”

Bucky’s eyes are the worst kind of solemn.“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Steve kisses him.“I promise.”

Once, Steve had told Tony Stark that he didn’t want a family or to settle down.He had said that fighting and being an Avenger had been home.Now, he sees that for the falsehood it was.Or perhaps it had been true at the time because he could never have imagined a world where he would have this, Bucky Barnes in his arms and loving him with the blazing fierceness of a thousand burning suns.Now, he thinks, maybe he could want something different for himself.

_-_-_

Steve manages to leave even though it feels like he is tearing himself in two to do it.By the time he lands the jet on the little island of Jeju-do, he is a very confusing mix of boundless joy and cramping sadness.

“Jesus, Cap,” Sam whistles.“Where in the hell are you spending your shore leave?You’re fucking _glowing_.”

“I found a great spa resort,” Steve deflects.

Sam squints at him in disbelief.“You got back together with Shannon, didn’t you.”

“What!?” Steve sputters.“No!”

Sam holds up his hands in surrender.“Okay, okay, just a guess.Chill.”But Sam is still staring at him intensely.“But there _is_ a girl, isn’t there.”

“I told you,” Steve practically grinds out.“It’s a spa.”

Sam shakes his head.“Have it your way, keep your poorly concealed secrets.”

When Steve leaves Sam to the flying Natasha walks past him and whispers, “ _Finally_.”And then she actually _winks_ at him.

Because, of course, Natasha probably knows exactly what’s going on.And of course, this is his life.

_-_-_

Shore leave becomes even more of a priority and Steve manages to begin making trips to Wakanda almost once per month if he’s lucky or once every two or even three if he’s unlucky.He arrives at one of his visits and is unexpectedly greeted by Princess Shuri herself.He has interacted with the witty genius a few times since first meeting her, she comes to visit Bucky and run the occasional test from time to time.Somewhere along the way she and Bucky have become friends.

“Greetings, Captain Rogers,” she says cheerily.“Mind if we share a ride.”

Steve crosses his fists over his chest and bows his head.“It would be an honor, your majesty.”

Shuri snorts and rolls her eyes before punching him in the arm.“Ow!What are those made out of?”She hisses as she shakes out her hand.

They spend the ride speaking of small things but as they near Bucky’s hut Shuri turns to him, her expression oddly serious. 

“You might consider staying longer,” she says.

“I beg your pardon?”Steve asks confused.

“You don’t see him when you’re gone,” Her eyes slide over to the hut meaningfully.“He looks better when you’re here.”

Steve feels a bit like he’s been slapped.It takes him a long time to get his wits back.“I’m working on it—that is—I plan on something more permanent…for me and Bucky I mean.”

Shuri smiles her impish smile, obviously pleased she’s been able to fluster him.“Good, see that you don’t wait too long.”

“Ma’am,” Steve smiles his best smile at the princess.“I was previously the worlds leading authority on waiting too long.I was happy to forfeit that title and have no plans on reclaiming.”

Shuri’s laugh is like a refreshing summer rain.

_-_-_

Settling down and keeping Bucky from fighting is much easier said than done.

It is one earth-ending cataclysmic event after another.

In all fairness, however, this one seems much bigger than the ones that came before it.

In the middle of it all, when the threat of invasion and galactic war is looming above them like so many stars, they steal a moment.Steve lets the tips of his fingers glide over the cool, dark metal of Bucky’s new left arm.The conjoining metal plates are just shy of cold against the pads of his fingers.He is both in awe of the new vibranium limb and repulsed by what it means, that Bucky will be returning to the fight.He knows what putting this arm on has cost Bucky.

“Like I’d let you go charging into this fight without me,” Bucky says on a breath, eyes watching Steve’s fingers, knowing the shape of his thoughts.

It is strange that Steve can still be surprised by how they live inside each other’s minds.

“I had just hoped...” Steve gets out tightly.

“I know,” Bucky replies brushing their noses alongside one another.

This could be the biggest fight of their lives.If what Bruce says is true, this could be the fight that they don’t win.If this plan Shuri and T’Challa have developed doesn’t work he doesn’t know what they’ll do.Steve is a realist despite what everyone seems to think about him.He always strives and fights, he always hopes, even in the face of overwhelming odds.He never thought he’d win against all those bullies who throttled him back when he was a sickly, scrawny kid but he never stood down.He knows that this is one of those fights.But he never gives up.He refuses to compromise or surrender.It’s what he does.And he can always depend on Bucky Barnes to have his back.

That is why he chooses this moment to reach into his belt and pull out a pair of dog tags.He opens Bucky’s palm and presses them into it, closing his fingers around them.

Bucky frowns.“I told you to keep ‘em.”

He had.Steve had offered them back on his first visit and Bucky had vehemently insisted that Steve keep them.He had said they didn’t belong to him anymore.

“These aren’t your tags.”Steve says.

Bucky’s head snaps up when he finally realizes that it is Steve’s name and information stamped into the metal.

Steve shrugs, suddenly self-conscious.“I figured…since I’ve got yours…”

Bucky straightens on a rough laugh.“Fucking punk…”

And his voice is full of so much wonder and affection it makes Steve’s heart constrict painfully.

There is the soft clink of soft metal knocking together as Bucky fastens the tags around his neck.Before he moves to tuck them under his combat vest Steve reaches up and takes them between his fingers, not wanting to rush the weight of this moment.

Bucky’s kiss to his cheek is a tender and welcome surprise.“This kinda feels like some kind of…declaration…”

Steve smiles and turns his face to kiss him properly.“Maybe it is…”

“Do it again,” Bucky says softly.“When the world isn’t ending.”

_-_-_

They watch the alien hordes as they mass along the shield wall.T’Challa prepares to give the order.Steve feels a pinky link with his own light, quick, and reassuring.They will go into this like they always have, side by side.

_-_-_

There are bodies everywhere. 

Screams and cries split the air.

Explosions cause the earth beneath him to quake.

It is madness.

Steve senses movement on his left but just as he brings one of his new shields up to fend off an attack the creature convulses as it is pelted with bullets.When it falls, Bucky is behind it, rifle up with the barrel glowing hot and smoking.

Steve smiles and Bucky smiles back.

Despite how much he hates that Bucky has been forced back into the fight again, it feels so good to be fighting with him again.

As previously stated, Steve can be pretty selfish.

_-_-_

Ashes…

Ashes are all that Steve is left with. 

He feels empty, hollowed out with only the excoriating memory of his name on Bucky’s lips just before he disappeared—before he was stolen from him yet again.It echoes through the cavern of what is left of him, reverberating through the vast emptiness within him. 

People are speaking, asking him questions, expecting him to lead.But all Steve can do is stare.

He should be crying.

He should be screaming.

He should be ripping out his hair.

But Steve has nothing left in him.

All that is left is ash…

Steve is made of ashes.

If there is some divine force out there…if there is a god…they must well and truly hate him.

_-_-_

They’re trying to plan. 

Fury had some kind of device that was found alongside his vehicle where he too had presumably vanished along with half the population.

The device is broadcasting something—to someone.Natasha is certain that this is the answer.She is certain that Fury had something in his back pocket that they can use to set things right. 

Steve ignores the wide wild look in her eyes.

Natasha ignores the robotic way he moves forward.The blank look in his eyes.

They’re all coping the best they can.

The signal turns out to have been a distress call.A woman by the name of Carol Danvers answers it.She is apparently an old friend of Fury’s.She claims that what happened on earth did, in fact, happen throughout the entire galaxy.

They get a lock on Tony and Danvers flies off to find him while those left behind just drift like the debris of a shipwreck, pretending they know what to do next.

They’re standing around a table, Rhodey and Rocket (a fucking space raccoon!Something Steve would probably be amazed by if he wasn’t just a shell of who he used to be) discuss ways to trace energy signatures across light-years.Steve is trying to listen, to be a good leader, when he reaches up and scratches at the scruff of his beard.A memory flashes in his mind’s eye, insistent, vivid, and sharp as shattered glass.It demands his attention, hijacking his awareness.

_—Bucky, raking fingers along his cheek and jaw.“Never seen you with a beard…”_

_Steve chuckles lazily from where he is leaning over him.“Want me to shave it?”_

_Bucky’s eyes crinkle in the corners like a leaf set burning as he smiles and his fingers continuing to trail through the coarse hair.“Nah…it scratches when we kiss…but I kinda like it…who would’a thunk it?”_

_Steve laughs and touches Bucky’s beard in return.“I’m a little worried we might start a fire.”_

_“Oh, you start a fire all right, Rogers…”_

_Bucky pulls him down, their laughter and happiness radiating between them—_

Steve feels the back of his throat burn.His heartbeat is thundering in his ears.Everything feels like it is twisting and spinning about and he is suddenly very certain he is about to vomit.He curtly excuses himself to the bathroom and Natasha eyes him in concern as he goes.

He is sick.

He falls to his knees and vomits the contents from his stomach that he didn’t think he had.It pours from him in violent heaving coughs.It is there, on the cold tile of a bathroom in the Avengers headquarters, right in front of a toilet, that Steve Rogers finally cries.There is snot leaking from his nose, saliva on his chin, and the taste of bitter bile on his tongue.It is ugly and raw.

When he finally manages to peel himself off the bathroom floor and get to the sink to rinse out his mouth he looks up to see the stranger that is his own haggard reflection.His eyes are red-rimmed and his skin pallid.

Suddenly, he can’t stand to have the beard on his face anymore—can’t stand the memory it calls forward.Savagely, he strips out of his shirt and frantically searches for shaving cream and a razor under the counter.He is desperate to shear the hair off of his skin, desperate to be free of the memory it brought back to him. 

He has never once felt so broken.

He has never felt like more of a coward.

_-_-_

Steve watches as the sunlight glow that halos Carol Danvers fades into the shimmering aurora of the planet atmosphere.He’s mildly worried that she might just decide to take on Thanos without them.She’s confident— _very_ confident.And she has a right to be, she’s got power that very well might surpass even Thor, but Steve doesn’t want to leave anything to chance.

He _will_ not leave anything to chance.

He cannot afford to.There is too much at stake.He will not waste the chance to get everyone back—to get Bucky back.

Reflexively he reaches under the collar of his uniform and his fingertips touch upon cool metal.He pulls free the dog tags he has tucked away, taking them from around his neck.He stares at the raised letters stamped into the metal.

JAMES B BARNES

32557038 T42 A

His thumb rubs across stamped letters and numbers, his mind fixed on Bucky.It is the only piece of him he has left.It is all that Thanos left him.

Anger and determination grow up like thorny vines from the soil of his grief. 

“This is gonna work, Steve,” Natasha assures, her eyes floating up from the tags in his hands and up to his face.

She knows.She probably knew before he did.

He curls his fingers around the metal and looks up to meet her gaze.“I know it is,” he tries to swallow down all the desperation and rage that is coiling inside of him and threatening to choke him.He only partially succeeds.“Because I don’t know what I’m gonna do if it doesn't.”

He has lived in a world without Bucky.It is a black hole devoid of color and sound.He’s not sure he can do it again.

_-_-_

Five years pass.Five empty years where Steve trudges doggedly forward.Because that’s just what Steve Rogers does.Push onward no matter what.He feels like a machine that is just left to run and he wonders when his batteries are going to finally run out of juice.

But until then…he’s going to do what he can.There are still people that need him, that need hope and purpose.So here he is, leading group therapy sessions a poor substitute for Sam Wilson.

One of the guys is talking about trying to move on, about trying to date again after losing his partner to the snap…his _male_ partner.That helps Steve finally swim through the ooze of his own emotional quagmire and into the present.

Hearing this guy just casually talk about a date he went on with another man…it hits Steve like a face full of Arctic ice.His mind turns to Bucky and what they had had, what they had been on the verge of having.What they had been building together.It hurts like the snap just happened yesterday.

“I lost the most important person to me in 1943…” Steve begins before he even knows that his mouth has decided to start moving and producing words.“I got him back only to lose him again.”He’s shaking, he’s never talked about Bucky and what he means—what he meant—to him so openly.“Against all odds, I found him again seventy years later…then I lost him…and then I got him back—and I thought this was it—this is when we get off this ride…” he stares down at his hands.“And then he’s just gone…ash and dust…”

The group is silent.It is like everyone is holding their breath.

He finally forces his eyes up and looks around at them all.“The point is, I’ve had a lot of practice trying to move on and it never stops hurting and it’s never easy…but if we don’t try…if we don’t do our best to start over and move forward…then Thanos might as well have taken us all out.”

His story, his words, they seem to reach the group because everyone is nodding at him.One woman is dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.He gives them all a shadow of a smile and nods.

 _Practice what you preach, Rogers._ He scolds himself.

_-_-_

He watches Natasha angrily attack her peanut butter sandwich, teeth tearing at it and chomping hard before forcing it down.That feels familiar, eating just to sustain your body wholly unconcerned with what it is or how it tastes, just fueling your body because of some primal reflex. 

Food tastes like sawdust to Steve these days.

There are tears in her eyes.And she drops the sandwich and brings her fingers to her face.

With other friends, he might go over and offer a hand on the arm or comforting words.

Instead, he opens with a joke, it’s the only kind of comfort Natasha Romanoff accepts these days.

“You know,” he starts, putting as much of his old self into his voice as he can drudge up.He’s scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point.“I’d offer to cook you dinner but you seem pretty miserable already.”

A smile slowly seeps across her mouth and she drops her hands.

They half-heartedly banter for a bit and Steve does his best impression of his old optimistic self before Natasha threatens him with a peanut butter sandwich to the head.

Steve chuckles before it fades into a sigh and he sinks down into a chair across from her.“You know, I keep telling people to move on…and some of them do…move on—get better…” he gives her a pitiful smile.“But not us.”

“Not us,” she echoes.

“I only had a few months,” he mutters down to the cluttered table.“A few life-changing…amazing months…and I was happy for once… _really_ happy.”

He just knows he’s going to fucking cry.

Natasha is quiet for a long time before she whispers, “I know.”Her voice so full of sympathy he hurts all over again.

It’s weird talking about it like this.In the five years since the snap, he still hasn’t just come right out and said what he and Bucky were—what they had grown into.He knows that some of them have at least guessed by now. Natasha has always seemed to know so it makes it easier to tell her.

“Buck and I…we had only just started to…” he shrugs uselessly.It shouldn’t be this hard. 

It never stops hurting to think about it, what they had just begun to have.It had felt so right, it had felt so close to something like fate—like a second chance.

“At least you average is getting better.”Natasha says.

He looks up and frowns at her in confusion.

“You had—what—one kiss with Peggy before promptly flying a plane into the ocean?Then you dated Sharon for about a week before that ended.”She smiles at him and it isn’t cruel or condescending.It’s mercifully playful, a lifeline.“You and Barnes had a few months.”Her smile twists playfully and her eyes light up.“At this rate, your next relationship might actually make it past a year.”

Steve sputters out a laugh, and if it’s a little wet at the end then Natasha’s kind enough not to mention it.

“Are you seriously trying to get me to look at the bright side?”He demands.

Natasha shrugs one shoulder up.“Thought I’d give it a try.Besides, turnabout’s fair play.”

“Well stop,” he chuckles, wiping the back of his wrist across his eyes, sniffling.“I think I get why people hate it so much when I do it.”

They share sad smiles and Steve doesn’t say that he isn’t sure there will ever be anyone else.He isn’t sure he can take that kind of leap again.He doesn’t think he can ever love someone that much again.There isn’t anyone who can ever measure up to James Buchanan Barnes.It would be cruel to have someone try to live with the ghost of him.

“We’ve still got _this_ , Steve,” Natasha says, steel in her voice.“I used to have nothing, and then I got _this—_ this job—this family.”Her emerald eyes burn into his.“And I was better because of it.”Then that fire in her eyes wavers and her voice catches.“And—and even though they’re gone…” she breathes.“I’m still trying to be better.”

They stare at one another and not for the first time and most definitely not the last time, Steve is in awe of the strength of Natasha Romanoff. 

He smiles at her.“I think we both need to get a life.”

It’s her turn to laugh while wiping away tears.“You first.”She dares.

And that is when the computer chimes at them and hope is, quite literally, delivered to their doorstep in the frantic form of Scott Lang.

_-_-_

Steve gets to his feet, he can feel the wound in his leg healing.Muscle and veins working overtime to knit back together.He is pushing the serum to its limit.He stares across the scorched earth, at Thanos and his seemingly never-ending army of minions.

 _This can’t be it.This can’t be the end of the line._ He tells himself.

Their snap worked.He knows it did.They undid everything Thanos did—reclaimed what he stole from them.They brought everyone back—Bucky is back...and Sam, and T’Challa.

He has lost Bucky so many times.He isn’t going to die now when he has just brought Bucky back.He can’t leave him alone here in the future.

He tightens the straps of his shield, the pain lancing through him so sharply he feels it in the roots of his teeth.He hisses and fixes his eyes ahead and takes a step forward.

Thanos only shakes his head in some absurd show of pity…like Steve is some child who is making a fool of themself.Steve knows what he looks like.He knows how absurd he must seem in the face of such odds.But Steve Rogers has never once quit and that determination has never let him down.He refuses to believe that this is it, that they reversed the snap—that Bucky returned—only for Steve to die here or the world to end.

_This is not how our story ends, Buck.No fucking way._

Thanos lifts his blade and points it at Steve.The hordes roar in challenge.

Steve takes another painful step forward, willing his accelerated healing to go faster.

There is the buzz of static in his ear and he thinks it might be because of the multiple blows to the head he’s received in this fight.Then he hears it again.He knows that voice.

“On your left,” Sam teases.

That is when the portals start spiraling into existence, opening sparking circular doorways into other places across the globe.His eyes prick sharply as he sees living proof that their plan worked.He could collapse with the sudden deluge of relief that surges through him.

Now he’s the one with an army.

Thanos snarls, his face twisting in anger.

Steve looks to either side of him, at the men and women who have come to fight with them.He smiles and it is as sharp and deadly as any blade.

“Avengers!”He cries out making sure to look Thanos in the eye and more softly this time.“Assemble.”

_-_-_

The battle is pure chaos.There is fighting everywhere and there is a really desperate game of football going on with the Infinity Gauntlet.He looks up and sees Wanda soaring above the din making a straight line for Thanos.

Steve feels pride and satisfaction well up within him seeing her go.

“Give him hell.”He mutters, sending his thoughts with her.

He hears snarls and a crash.

“Aw, fuck!”Someone curses irritably.

Steve knows that voice—knows the sound of cursing from that voice intimately.

His head whips around and that is when he sees the person he’s been searching for since the portals began to open.He sprints, not out of fear for the person’s safety but out of sheer joy and relief.He uses his cracked shield to bash the three aliens aside and to set Bucky free.

Bucky’s head drops back onto the earth before he smiles up at him.“I had’em on the ropes.”

Steve is smiling so big it hurts.He reaches down and Bucky reaches up and he helps Bucky to his feet.And right there, in the middle of the fight for the lives of the billions, he yanks Bucky to him and kisses him uncaring of who sees or what anyone thinks.

He could weep with the familiar feel of Bucky smile against his lips.Five years feels like yesterday—it feels like an eternity. 

“Is that a hammer you got there, or are you just happy to see me?”Bucky whispers coyly.

Steve laughs and his throat aches with the forgotten sensation.It feels like he is coming back to life.It’s like he can feel his heart for the first time since he watched Bucky dissipate into ashes.Color and sound flood back into the world again.

He strokes the back of his fingers slowly down the side of Bucky’s face, relishing the feel of him.“Can’t it be both?”He grins stupidly.

“Oh, so that’s how it is,” Sam chuckles directly into his ear has he soars somewhere above them.“I really feel like I should’ve guessed this.”

“Shut up, Bird-Man,” Bucky quips back, absently shooting someone or something rushing at them before going back to kissing Steve.

“That’s how it is.”Steve answers Sam between kisses.

“Suddenly our entire snafu six years ago makes a _whole_ lot more sense,” Tony remarks zipping past them.

Steve pulls back from Bucky and rubs a hand over his face.“We weren’t—it wasn’t _like_ that then!”

“Man,” Peter Parker pants.“My American History teacher is gonna lose it!The books got _so_ much wrong!”

Steve rolls his eyes but it feels good.It feels good to feel exasperated and playful again.

Bucky cocks an eyebrow at him.“Well, what do you say we save the world again?”

_-_-_

When Steve grows into existence back on the platform where he had left Bucky, Sam, and Bruce he can instantly tell that there is something wrong with Bucky.He can see it in the tight bunch of his shoulders; in the sinking of his throat; in the shimmer of his steel-blue eyes.

He deactivates his suit, blinking it away as he jumps from the platform right in front of Bucky.He brings a hand to his shoulder and he can feel the shudder that goes through the other man.He frowns, not understanding what is going on.

“How bout we give you guys a minute,” Sam suggests, perceptive as always and ever the perfect wingman.

Steve nods at him from over his shoulder.“Thanks.”

He can hear Bruce’s heavy steps as he and Sam take a walk and Steve’s attention hones in on Bucky, ushering him over to a stone bench at the edge of the lake.Bucky follows his lead, almost woodenly, his expression far off.Steve hasn’t seen this kind of look on his face since they were in Wakanda. 

“Buck,” Steve pleads softly, trying to catch his eye.

“You came back,” Bucky mutters, dropping heavily onto the bench.

“Of course I did,” Steve replies, sitting down next to him.He takes Bucky’s vibranium hand in his own, knowing flesh and metal fingers together.He feels lost and worried, searching Bucky’s face for some clue about what is going on inside of his head.

Bucky swallows, grips Steve’s hand like a lifeline.“I thought you’d stay—you should have stayed.”He grinds out.

Those words feel like a knife to the gut.“What?Buck, what are you saying?”

Bucky closes his eyes and his tone goes hard.“I’m _saying_ that you should’ve stayed back in the forties, found Carter, gotten away from all this, and started an _actual_ life.”

Understanding crashes over Steve like the hard slap of white-capped waves.He can feel just how much these words are costing Bucky.It fills him with a sickening whirlpool of sadness and anger.How could Bucky ever think that he would willingly leave him?

“Why would you think that?” He asks in a tight whisper.

He can feel Bucky tense and he starts to pull away.

“Don’t,” Steve essentially pleads.“Stay with me.Talk to me.”

Bucky sighs and relaxes back against him.“It’s just—after what you said about seeing Peggy again…you love her and she loved you.She actually understood you—saw you for everything you're worth, even when you were ninety pounds soaking wet.”

Steve nudges him because of the jab but says nothing because this is serious and he doesn’t want to give Bucky the chance to deflect.

“I do love her,” he replies honestly, he can feel Bucky tense but he refuses to lie to Bucky.That’s why he had told Bucky about seeing Peggy when he’d been traveling through time.He hadn’t known it was going to lead to this.“But I told you, Peggy…Peggy had a life—a full life—with a husband, and kids, and a career.I have no right to mess with that.”He closes his eyes and breathes trying to think of how he can make Bucky understand.“I wouldn’t be the Steve she loved.That guy would still be in the ice.She told me once that none of us can go back, that all any of us can do is start over.”He stroked his thumb along the cool metal of Bucky’s index finger.“That’s what this is, Buck, I know that _this thing_ between us is still new but I _want_ this.”He says fiercely.He turns to face Bucky and his eyes are swimming.“I’ll always love Peggy, but she’s my past and you…you’re my future, Bucky.When I woke up from the ice I had no one.Then I found you, against all odds.I’ve lost you a few more times along the way but we’ve always found each other again…if that doesn’t seem like fate then I don’t know what does?”

Bucky closes his eyes and draws a jagged breath.Steve reaches up with his free hand to grip the back of Bucky’s head and pulls their foreheads together.“I’m with you till the end of the line.”He swears softly.

That’s when Bucky lets out something close to a sob.“You’re a real idiot, you know that?”He says.“No sense of what’s fucking good for you—never have.”

“Nope,” Steve whispers, smiling as he leans in that hairsbreadth distance between them and kisses Bucky.He kisses him just like he’s already learned in a short time that Bucky loves, slow and deep and with conviction. 

Bucky tries to hold back for a moment before surging forward teeth rolling Steve’s lower lip between them.He kisses Steve’s lower lip once just before he pulls back.

“Love you, punk,” he sighs.

“Love you too, jerk.”

_-_-_

Later, when Bucky is sprawled heavily across Steve’s chest and the sweat is cooling on their skin and Steve is just beginning to drift off to sleep, Bucky stirs and speaks into quiet.

“So, what’s your plan?”

Steve frowns, his eyes still closed.“Plan?”

“You always got a plan, Stevie.”

Steve chuckles.“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it a _plan_ …”

“I knew it!”

“I just thought that it might be time for me to try some of that life Tony was telling me about.He and Natasha gave their lives for this world, the least I can do is defend it and enjoy it.”

Bucky rises up, resting his forearms on Steve’s chest.His hair is an unruly post-coital mane and hangs in a curtain around his face.“You saying you want to settle down and have a kid, Rogers?”

Steve feels himself blush at the implications and yet…why should he be embarrassed.He knows what he wants.

“I’ve always been the monogamous type…and maybe I’m being presumptuous here but I’m thinking you’re feeling the same.”

Bucky outright laughs at that.“I’d have to be crazy to tie myself to you forever.”

“Then I guess you’re crazy,” Steve reaches up and rubs a lock of dark hair between his fingers.Cause I think you’ve been tied to me for over a hundred years already.”

Bucky’s face goes soft just before he leans in and kisses him.“Yeah, I suppose there’s no going back from here, huh…”

“Not for me…”

“Me either,” Bucky plants a kiss on his chin before taking his place back on Steve’s chest.“So, what’s the plan?”

“I dunno,” Steve sighs.“Shuri is fixing the shield…but I think I’m gonna give it to Sam.”

“Good call.”

“You don’t want it?”

“No way!I’m too jaded.Sam’s definitely Captain America material.”

“I think so too.”Steve starts to trail his fingers up and down Bucky’s back, tracing the lines of muscle.“I’m not completely retiring but I think I’d like to try and start to build something—see the world with my best guy.”

“We could start in Taiwan,” Bucky supplies readily.Clearly, Steve isn’t the only one with plans.“I’d like to show you Chiayi, feed you street food.”

“I’d like that,” Steve muses.“Seeing the world as just a person rather than on some mission or deployment.”

“And then what?”Bucky asks.

“I dunno, Brooklyn maybe…” Steve stares up at the ceiling fan.“But maybe that’s in our past too…there was something nice about that little hut in Wakanda and I did like Clint’s farmhouse.”

“Steve Rogers, farmer,” Bucky laughs.

“Hey, I’d make a great farmer.”

“Of course you would, sweetheart.You’re perfect.You’ll always be Captain America, shield or no shield.”

“ _You’re_ perfect,” Steve counters, dropping his voice suggestively, moving his fingers to trace the raised flesh of the scars around Bucky’s metal arm.

He feels Bucky grin into his skin.“I’m beginning to think that we’re meant to be simply because of super soldier libidos.”

“That’s definitely _one_ perk,” Steve growls just as he flips Bucky onto his back.

Just before he gets lost in Bucky again, Steve thinks that this was the life that both Peggy and Natasha had been telling him to have.He decides that they’d both approve.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Post:
> 
> <https://azuldemon.tumblr.com/post/190228633336/on-waiting-too-long-azuldemon-multifandom>  
> 


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